Like most who probably are reading this, I tried during the ascent of Donald J. Trump to make sense of what on earth we were witnessing.

First there was the idea that he was a Clinton plant (which may be partially true) - there to be the perfect candidate for Clinton to defeat as she finally gets the presidency she has wanted for so, so long. Clinton and Trump were friends for quite a long time - there are social pictures of the Clinton and Trump camps together going back almost as far as I have been alive.

However, Trump seemed to believe his own hype and the friction between him and Hillary seemed pretty real unless they both are incredible actors (as we saw during the debate last night). That debate was filled with animosity and madness, the snarky comments of "You'd be in jail" from Trump, Trump's wandering, kicking of his feet and looming over Hillary during the debate, his bringing out former accusers of Bill Clinton. His comment especially, when asked to compliment to Hillary Clinton, that she was a "fighter" was telling particularly for me. There's several videos of him saying exactly that sort of thing of her during better times. During most of his career, Hillary seemed like someone he admired. Consider that for a minute. I could actually imagine saying something similar to people I have known and respected (including women) who became clouded in my life by disappointment and betrayal. This whole saga will make for one hell of a book and/or film.

Personal melodrama was driving this - a melodrama that may be worse than a man like Donald Trump would ever want to admit to himself. The thought occurred to me after that debate, as many individuals came around to say they had "worse" videos of Trump than his boasting of sexual assault by "grabbing them by the pussy," that this was a trap, that alot of people in media, in the housing industry and even in his own circle so loathed Donald Trump after years of dealing with him that they had decided to set a trap for him that would seem so attractive to him that he would walk right in to it.

There is precedent for this. There once was a millionaire alot like Donald Trump - Howard Hughes. Like Trump, Hughes was a beneficiary of privilege who nonetheless took his privilege to be a huge personality in public life, building planes, films and buildings with his name emblazoned on them. He flaunted women much like Trump does and eventually became the undoing both of public officials (in Hughes' case, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster, who tried to ruin Hughes' life by making him out as a war profiteer) and mental illness (it's anyone's guess what the fuck is wrong with Trump but Hughes had hardcore OCD).

(A little note - by comparing the persecution of Hughes to what is going on with Trump, I'm in no way victimizing Trump. They are very different people - one was a genius who genuinely contributed to the world. The other is one of the most disgusting creatures to infect our public space in memory. Nevertheless the situations are similar and illustrate precedence for this sort of thing.)

Sure, there will be the less-educated, poor white men who admire Trump and maybe buy his books (when they come out in paperback), but these are not his core customers, his hotel guests, his business partners or his bankers. If doing business with Trump now earns you a slew of awful publicity (e.g. women boycotting, Hispanics picketing), why would you do business with the country’s most infamous sleazebag? His name has long been associated with crass excess and garish taste, a poor man’s version of how the rich live. Now his name is synonymous with gross lechery.

Suddenly a really rough explanation comes in to mind - that many of the people who worked with and were close to Trump hated his guts and worked out a way to really destroy his life and legacy. And it worked. Maybe he could earn a place for himself in the world of Alt Right extremists - talking amongst the like of Augustus Invictus or Jack Donovan (look them up) but the whole world he had most his life may be at an end for him.

There eventually is going to be a real alternative right candidate in the United States - someone like France's Marine Le Pen or Germany's Frauke Petry. They might even win, especially if they more intelligently connect themselves with Vladimir Putin's brand of conservative authoritarianism. However, Trump is not it. He may be remembered as a tragic figure to them, as someone who tried but was beaten down by the progressive/neoliberal establishment but he's not going to be the Alt Right revolutionary they seek. He's just a sad man reaching a very sad end.

Comments

Eh, no one is smart/insane enough to plan and execute something like this.

But what a clusterfuck this has turned out to be and not just for Donald. Everyone he touches comes away reeking: Giuliani, Christie, Cruz, Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, Pence, Ayotte, Bill, Hillary, Putin, Melania, the media, and the entire Republican Party. He's a walking disease, the Typhoid Mary of debasement.

No. Unless one is steeped in some mind altering drugged fantasy, this was not some complex Wagnerian melodramatic conspiracy of 'neoliberals' to sabotage the precious bodily fluids of the GOP, alt-right, Tea Party or whatever name they come up with next to escape accountability for their most recent disaster.

This was a reality show host huckster, who fit right in with them ideologically, commandeering the bigoted, democracy hating base the Republican Party has spent 30 years and billions of dollars creating and working into a furor of hate every election to exploit them and their votes.

This post is a change of direction from those of yours crowning Trump the Alt Right King.
I wonder if this country really has the core of national identity that makes Le Pen or Putin possible. The "establishment" republicans have gone to the well many times to pull up another bucket of that kind of thing and Trump's vision of a market solution to all that ails us is popular because it does not turn on who we are but who we were. Who we were meaning, of course, white middle class educated inheritors of the next generation of jobs.

Trump's form of identity politics is racial and class oriented, not centered upon a shared national identity.
His gestures of solidarity pointing at that kind of identity are as weak a beer as his attempts to be accepted by evangelistic Christians.

The Rove/Bush team may be the last to combine those toxic elements into a single political agenda.

Search form

In the News

In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government WikiLeaks in its early years published a broad scope of information, including emails belonging to Sarah Palin and Scientologists, phone records of Peruvian politicians, and inside information from surveillance companies. But by 2016, WikiLeaks had switched course, focusing almost exclusively on Clinton and her campaign.

WASHINGTON — Kara Young, a biracial model who dated Donald J. Trump for two years before he married another model named Melania Knauss, remembers clearly bringing up her race with the real estate tycoon early in their relationship. As with so many issues, he steered the conversation to celebrity.

Trump tweeted about his sadness over the loss of "beautiful" Confederate statues. He again equated a man who fought to create the United States with a man who knowingly fought o destroy the United States. Robert E. Lee could have led the Union Army. His sister's son fought for the Union. 40% of Virginia fought for the Union. Robert E. Lee chose to be a terrorist.

Trump champions the "Lost Cause". It is not surprising that he is unaware of why many of these Confederate statues were erected. Take the Robert E. Lee statue in Baltimore as an example. The statue was erected in 1948. The statue was meant to intimidate black soldiers and sailors returning home from World War II. It served as a reminder to those black men and women that white people were still in control

“Our country’s greatest strengths are the diversity of its people and the principles of equal dignity and inclusion that unite us all. There are troubling events planned in our state in the coming weeks. This is an incredibly painful and difficult time for millions of Californians. For those who are wondering where we stand – the ACLU of California fully supports the freedom of speech and expression, as well as the freedom to peacefully assemble. We review each request for help on a case-by-case basis, but take the clear position that the First Amendment does not protect people who incite or engage in violence. If white supremacists march into our towns armed to the teeth and with the intent to harm people, they are not engaging in activity protected by the United States Constitution.

There were no decent people marching alongside the white supremacists and Nazis. Decent people cannot work in the Trump White House. If you support Trump, you support a racist. You are an enabler. If you work for Trump, you work for a Nazi sympathizer, you are an enabler. Jewish people who work for Trump are working for a man who encourages anti-Semites. Blacks who work for Trump work for a racist who is attacking the black community. Hispanics who work for Trump work for a bigot who called Mexicans racists.

There are no decent political people hired by Trump working in the White House. (General staff like maintenance, kitchen staff, etc are excluded)

WASHINGTON — The renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement is off to a rocky start.

The Trump administration lectured Canada and Mexico on the failures of the current agreement at an opening news conference Wednesday morning, while behind closed doors negotiators began to seek significant concessions from America’s neighbors.

“We feel that Nafta has fundamentally failed many, many Americans and needs major improvement,” said Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, who is leading the United States team aiming to overhaul the 25-year-old agreement [....]

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stood shoulder-to-shoulder Tuesday with President Donald Trump, the same man who railed against her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, last week and demanded that the lawmaker "get back to work" on health care."I stand by my man -- both of them," Chao said, when asked by reporters what she thought of her boss's criticism of her husband.

A Los Angeles-based tech company is resisting a federal demand for more than 1.3 million IP addresses to identify visitors to a website set up to coordinate protests on Inauguration Day — a request whose breadth the company says violates the Constitution.